The Irish, according to George Bernard Shaw (himself a Gael), have only enough sex life to perpetuate their cantankerous species. Fr. Andrew Greeley's fleshing out of this charge is only one of the things in [That Most Distressful Nation] to make the Irish even more cantankerous. There are also chapters on their (or should I say "our"?) history, culture, politics, drinking, religion, family life and future to give them more excuses for both rage and amusement. Some pages might even give a boost to their fragile pride.

The story is written from the inside, for Greeley had four Irish grandparents when he was born in Irish middle-class respectability in Oak Park, Illinois, and he has lived all of his forty-odd years among the Irish of Chicago. The subtitle tells the story, "The Taming of the American Irish."…

With the exception of the Jews [the American Irish] have achieved...